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6 charged in death of man exhumed from Tennessee backyard

WINCHESTER, Tenn. (AP) — A woman who hadn’t spoken to her son in months reported him missing last month and within days police in Tennessee found his body buried under a concrete slab in his backyard. Now six people are charged in connection with his death including his wife, stepdaughter and son-in-law.

Winchester Police Department Assistant Chief Kelly Gass said police began investigating the disappearance of 50-year-old James Leon Wood when his mother, who lives in New Mexico, reported him missing on Jan. 18. Gass said the investigation led officers to obtain a search warrant for the home and they found his body on Jan. 24 buried in the backyard.

Police said in a statement that evidence presented Feb. 2 to the Franklin County grand jury led to six indictments in the case. Wood’s wife, Glenna Yvonne Wood; his stepdaughter, Mikayla Danielle Harmon; Harmon’s husband, Grant Matthew Poole; and another man, Shawn Michael Hampton, were charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and abuse of a corpse. Two others, Kisha Evelyn Anderson and Joseph Scott Newingham were charged with being accessories after the fact.

Hampton was arrested Friday in Madison County, Alabama, and the others were arrested in Thornton, Colorado. It’s unclear if they have lawyers.

Gass said police determined that the last time Wood had been heard from was July 2017. He declined to discuss a possible motive in the case.

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